Home
by Writer0895
Summary: Hogwarts had always been a home for Sirius; something No. 12 Grimmauld Place failed to be. And Sirius always believed that Hogwarts would always be his home. So why, now that he had returned back to his home after thirteen years, one war and several lost friendships, Hogwarts didn't feel like one.


A/N: One shot; written for hard level Master of Long Challenges at Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges.

Shout out to 'TheNextFolchart' for being an awesome beta.

**Home**

_"Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?"_  
_― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss_

It had been raining all those years ago when he first stepped off the Hogwarts Express into the castle, and he didn't find it surprising that the weather hadn't changed upon his return, almost like the scars on his soul weren't a testament to the fact that years had lapsed; Hogwarts had always had that timeless sort of feeling, and for him, the camouflage provided by the rain was Hogwarts' way of welcoming him back; even though he was a dead man on his feet with a bounty on his head and the worries of the world on his shoulders, the first breathtaking view of the solitary building in the dark gave him the strength he didn't know he possessed (and maybe he truly didn't); it gave him the strength to ignore the ongoing rumbling in his stomach wherein lay the carcasses of a couple of rats - he had his mind on a different one though - and the strength to make it to the edge of the forest, off of Hagrid's path; and when sleep evaded him that night only to be replaced by the gentle patter of the rain on his visible rib bones, he closed his eyes and thought of Hogwarts and the times he had spent there; Hogwarts where he created the best memories of his life (quite a lot of them ruined now) with the best friends he could have asked for: his nagging Remus, who was probably the only thing that had kept him from crossing the line to the point where the school board expelled him - he heard Remus was teaching there now - and his best mate James, who still dwelled in the school in spirit, in soul, in mischief, in every bad prank and in his son Harry who would be in his third year if his calculations were correct (and they ought to be, he had plenty of time in the Azkaban to do them correctly); and the last member of their gang, the last marauder, the traitor lurking beneath a mask of shyness and nervousness, admiration and politeness; and the mere act of thinking about Peter made Sirius's blood boil: if Peter had been cowardly before, he should be absolutely terrified of what Sirius would do to him if they met (and they would meet, too, for Peter was in the castle in his animagus form - a rat, which was fitting); Sirius's plan was fairly simple: he was going to succumb to the accusations that had been hurled at him - all credits to Pettigrew for that, of course - and if Peter didn't have the decency to stick by friends, Sirius had no qualms about ending his loyalty toward Peter; and not for the first time Sirius wondered how the mousy boy from his school years (an entirely different era), who had once thrown up due to guilt over one of their pranks, could gamble away the lives of his best friends and live with the guilt every day; but then again, how could he have betrayed them in the first place, them in whose friendship he had found happiness; he had tried to figure out Peter's reasoning for years, but he gave up every time when he realized that, when it came down to it, he, Sirius, was simply a better man: he was more loyal, he was braver, and he couldn't comprehend the workings of a backstabbing ruthless villain - and in his story, Peter would always be the villain, the destroyer of their friendships, their faith, their trust, their loyalty: the destroyer of the mild hopes they'd once had in the dark world that had forced them to grow up too much too soon; when the Order had found out there was a traitor in their midst, everyone had become suspicious, and even if no one said it aloud, everyone felt the change in the atmosphere: the spark dying and the adrenaline ran high (it was almost always on a high in the world of war) and the only one who refused to stop trusting his friends was James - stupidly loyal James - and he had been killed because of it; so how could you blame anyone for losing their hope when the universe sent continuous signs proving hope was futile; Sirius focused his eyes back on the castle and somehow he didn't find it nearly as appealing as it had been just a few moments ago; he tried telling himself that it was his home, but the emotions ignored the desperate plea in his head and started pooling themselves in the pit of his stomach, emotions he recognized as anger, and they were directed at Hogwarts, at the castle and the memories it held because if Hogwarts really was timeless, then why weren't they - they who had believed that they were not just a part of Hogwarts, but that they completed it, too; the old memories didn't hurt him nearly as much as what they had lost to time; every second was suddenly filled with dread, and Sirius couldn't remember a time when his throat wasn't choking and his mind wasn't numb with disbelief; and Sirius had assumed he had survived and escaped Azkaban because he knew he was innocent, because he had a cause to fight for, but perhaps that was wrong, perhaps the dementors didn't affect him because he had no good memories to long for, and because he was already a dead man who had lost his soul the same night he had lost his best friend, and because he was no more than a ghost of a man who had forgotten to live; and perhaps it was because he knew that the marauders were dying before that night ripped them apart, and because he already knew that there was no going back, not for them, there was no way to take those ruined memories and make them right; and perhaps that was why Hogwarts didn't feel like home anymore: because maybe his home wasn't a place; maybe his home was in his now-estranged friends.

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A/N: You know the drill- Review


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